If you’re a fan of wild games, this one had a little bit of everything.
Lance Lynn took the mound tonight looking for his 11th win of the season, though he was fighting himself all night. He struggled a bit with control in the first with a walk, base hit, and stolen base given up before he recorded an out. Lynn battled to strikeout Matt Olson and Jed Lowrie, and inducing a ground out to get out of the inning on 31 pitches unscathed.
Later in the 3rd, he ran into trouble again. Lance loaded the bases with no outs and struck out another 2 and induced an infield pop-up to escape this one. In the 4th, Lynn finally cracked, giving up a solo home run to Seth Brown. Lance was ejected at the end of the inning during a sticky stuff check, presumably over tossing his belt in the direction of the umpire.
Garrett Crochet came in to relieve Lynn and was able to get out of his mini jam in the fifth inning on a double play. After getting to 2 outs with a runner on in the sixth, Ryan Tepera came in to replace Crochet to face righty Stephen Piscotty. Tepera struck out Piscotty to end the 6th inning. However, he faced some adversity in the 7th, as a “triple” off the bat of Elvis Andrus put Tepera in a tough position. After Starling Marte’s sac fly and with a lefty coming up, La Russa called upon Aaron Bummer to finish the inning. He struck out Matt Olson and induced a groundout to end the inning. Liam Hendriks came in after a couple baserunners reached in the 8th. He quickly got out of the inning with groundout and flyout. Liam came back out for the 9th inning to attempt to complete a 5-out save – and did so.
On the other side of the ball: the offense tonight got off to a quick start in the 1st. After back-to-back hits with 1 out, Eloy Jimenez hit a rocket to left field for a RBI double. The offense found some life in the 4th inning after back-to-back walks of Moncada and Goodwin followed by a RBI single from Luis Robert. A couple innings later, Robert struck again with another RBI single to score Moncada.
The White Sox leave this game with a 71-50 record, 12 games up in the AL Central.
W: Garrett Crochet (3-5) | L: Blackburn (0-1) | S: Hendrisk (28)
Savant Leaders
Notable Performances
Lance Lynn: 4IP, 3H, ER, 3BB, 4K
As mentioned earlier, Lynn struggled with his control tonight. This was evidenced by his 3 walks in 4 innings. On top of that, he also went into 2 and 3 ball counts in the at-bats of some of his strikeouts. He labored through 4 innings, throwing 88 pitches in the process – though the umpiring crew cut his night a bit short.
Liam Hendriks: 1.2 IP, 3 K, Save
Liam came in with runners on in the 8th inning to preserve the lead and succeeded. Because of his 6-pitch inning, he came back out for the 9th and struck out the side. This save gives Hendriks his 28th on the year.
Eloy Jimenez: 1-for-4, 2B, RBI
Eloy has been simply great since his return from the IL. He drove in a run on a 111.9 mph rocket to left field. If you didn’t already know it: Eloy Jimenez will continue to be an important part of this lineup.
Luis Robert: 3-for-4, 2RBI
Luis, like Eloy, has also been successful since his return from the IL. His first 2 at-bats both resulted in hard hit balls (batted balls 95mph or harder), including the RBI single. Robert came up with 2 on in the bottom of the 6th and hit a RBI single, this time off of Sergio Romo. In his 4 at-bats, 3 of his batted balls were over 100mph.
Next Game
The White Sox will look to sweep Oakland in tomorrow’s afternoon game. After tonight’s workload for the bullpen, the team will look to Dylan Cease tomorrow to cover some innings and shut down the Athletics’ offense.
Cease will take on lefty Cole Irvin at 1:10pm CT on NBC Sports Chicago.
